Posts by Andalou

Girls Who Code books 'banned' in some US classrooms

Re: Reality of Our Surroundings

Separate but equal. Yup, that usually works.

"There are so, so few leftists trying to delist and ban books."

I guess you lot don't read children's books or read about their publishing, much.

Zuck says Facebook made an 'operational mistake' in not taking down US militia page mid-protests. TBH the whole social network is a mistake

Colour me confused. I thought the Black (sic) Lives Matter (sic) terrorists had been using his platforms for three months to destroy tens of thousands of livelihoods and instigate the killings of more than 30 people. Democrat mayors and Democrat-tainted justice departments have done nothing to quell this violence so some patriotic Americans have done their duty and stepped in where others have abnegated.

Zuckerberg speaks up but only criticises the pro-American groups and remains silent and will continue to allow violent anti-American agitators on Facebook. Eh?

Yorkshire bloke's Jolly Roger flag given the heave-ho after council receives one complaint

Technically, I think you'll find

"Jolly Roger flag"? Shouldn't that be Jolly flag on land, or Jolly Roger at sea? There is no such thing as a Jolly Roger flag.

Or something.

DeepNude deep-nuked: AI photo app stripped clothes from women to render them naked. Now, it's stripped from web

"Waah! 's'not fair. How come von Braunhut gets lauded and plaudits but all I get is hate?"

IVE HAD ENOUGH! iQuit. Jobs done. Jony cashes out at Apple to run his own design biz

Oftentimes he was just flat-out wrong.

Stop using that MacBook Pro RIGHT NOW, says Uncle Sam: Loyalists suffer burns, smoke inhalation and worse – those crappy keyboards

Colour me sceptical

This is a dubious nonsensical non-story. If Bridges is a genuine person then it is very simple. They rent a replacement laptop for a few weeks and claim it as a tax-deductible expense. No cost to them. If they "can't afford" to do this then they could not have afforded to spend an extra four-figure sum for a Mac OS-based laptop in the first place. Smacks of made-up clickbait.

Uh-oh .io: Question mark hangs over trendy tech startup domains as UN condemns British empire hangover

It sounds as if ...

... it's an enormous lunacy to me.

Montezuma's Revenge can finally be laid to rest as Uber AI researchers crack the classic game

Me too. But I think that must be THQ Nordic's downtime project.

Only plebs use Office 2019 over Office 365, says Microsoft's weird new ad campaign

Get Off My Lawn

Tut and kh. You young'uns and your "ooh, shiny" frippery. Never mind 2019 vs 365. As any fool knows, true Word fans and experts are still using 5.1a in a virtual machine

Apple's launch confirms one thing: It's determined to kill off the laptop for iPads

Wow, The UK has Stormfront stores on the high street yet Brits sneer at Trump's America. Heal thyselves.

Max Schrems is back: Facebook, Google hit with GDPR complaint

Don't say mail, say

Yahoo! mail presented me with a rather strange and probably non-compliant burden a few days ago. I was expected to spend double figures of minutes marking individual check boxes that were presented only nine at a time - and there were nearly four hundred of them in a single scrolling dialog.

Please no Basic Instinct flashing, HPE legal eagles warn staffers

Re: Confidence!

I have an anorak with a button flap in a customary direction but the fastener of the zip is on the 'wrong' side. It is crazily strange just how awkward it is to use the zip.

America throws down gauntlet: Accept extra security checks or don't carry laptops on flights

Re: Tourism Money

"You know the saying about opening your mouth and removing all doubt that you're an idiot."

Sixty-three million votes say, "So?"

Bye bye MP3: You sucked the life out of music. But vinyl is just as warped

Re: Train?

"Is that the bloke that doesn't know / understand the meaning of deja vu?"

A little unfair to single him out. When is the last time you have seen anyone use the term acceptably? My brain would literally explode with surprise if I did.

Licence-fee outsourcer Capita caught wringing BBC tax from vulnerable

W.r.t. foreign programmes from more ad-supported networks the biggest annoyance is those infernal shows with forty-five second recaps every five or seven minutes. It is crazily annoying watching them edited ad-free on Netflix.

Re: Not Entirely Fair

Your second paragraph is incorrect. If you do not use your television as a television but only as a monitor then you do not need a licence. Even if you use your television as a television but only for Netflix et al (from your computer) you do not need a licence. If you prefer your PET or Amiga experience on a CRT rather than through an emulator you are still free to do so at no charge.

The only (recent) difference is you now may no longer avoid the fee through the bizarre anomaly of iPlayer.

Where contempt for the BBC is valid is their despicable introduction of visible watermarks on their broadcasts. It is annoying that now even licence players have to wait for Blu-ray rips to be torrented to watch new content. That is a horrendous practice.

Alcatel Idol 3: Holding its own with a pretty decent 5.5 inches

Re: The right way around!

"Surely if the headphone socket is at the bottom, then when it's in your pocket the headphone lead needs to go down then up to get to your ears? And the 3.5mm jack gets stressed as it's taking some of the weight? And if the lead gets caught there's little chance of just the plug popping out before the whole phone goes airborne?"

Eh? When the phone is in your pocket you want the top facing down so when you pull it out it ends up the right way up in your palm - this seems most natural when it is upside-down. As such headphone sockets should be at the bottom of the phone.

Power is more variable - if recharging via cable then socket should be at the top so that cable is not stressed or gets in the way when you glance at it or use it when sitting down. (I know, what a lazy weakling, having to rest my wrist on my thigh.) But for docks you want it at the bottom. Because of this interface should always be flippable as docks require upside-down use.

Doctor Who returns to our screens next week – so, WHO is the worst Time Lord of them all?

I promise I am not just being contrarian. I think Tom Baker's was the worst. Tom Baker is a great charismatic person - but he is Tom Baker. He played Tom Baker not the Doctor.

Apple takes blade to 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display

Who [ ] buys a laptop [ ] high resolution [ ] .screen - in order to use the command line?

Plenty of people. If you are staring at rows of text all day you don't want jaggies.

YES: Scotland declares independence ... from the dot co dot uk empire

Salmond forces 50% increase in costs to businesses for online presence

Is how some will happily headline this news.

Dungeons & Dragons relaunches with 'freemium' version 5.0

Call me imaginatively challenged

Is this the radio version? You have to use your imagination to provide illustrations.

Netflix needling you? BBC pimps up iPlayer ahead of BBC3 move

Unsimple as A B C

For 'pimps up' read 'reduces usability'.

The A-Z listing is now wholly useless. Displaying lists of thirty to sixty programmes only three or four to the screen is bonkers. How is that supposed to help?

Surface 2 and iPad Air: Prepare to meet YOUR DOOM under a 'Landfill Android' AVALANCHE

Re: A quick correction

Quick correction - if you spend £6,000 or maybe £3,000 in Tesco they will bundle a tablet for an extra £59.

Universal's High Fidelity Pure Audio trickles onto Blighty’s Blu-Ray hi-fis

Re: Quality gets overlooked these days

SACD bombed because they used it to bump up "nice price" back catalogue prices by 50%. If they had continued to sell one album at £9.99 or £10.99 instead of two with one at £15.99 then more customers would have bothered to change their player when buying a new one.

Google Nexus 7 2013: Fondledroids, THE 7-inch slab has arrived

Re: Best Tablet in the World?

It's the "who" not the "that" that matters.

Huawei Ascend P6: Skinny smartphone that's not just bare bones

Re: It's not upside down

That is not the issue mentioned in this review - I agree a headphone socket on the bottom can be preferable. With this phone the socket is on the side - so phone may not slide out cleanly, particularly if your headphones don't have an L-shaped connector.

Netflix dares UK freetards: Watch new Breaking Bad NOW or torrent it?

I was planning to rewatch the previous series (not sic) through Netflix before watching the final episodes. Only got as far as the very first episode when I noticed that Jesse's girlfriend was wearing a bra. Goodness knows what other ridiculous bowdlerisations the studio made to the version they give to Netflix UK.

Apple KILLER decloaked? Google lovingly unboxes Nexus 7 Android 4.3 slablette

1080 vs 1200

If you are drafting a royal birth announcement for foolscap there is not much difference in useability but for those targeting A4 the 120 pixels make a very surprising difference. Of course, affordable 1440 would be better. Indeed, for many uses, a 17" pivoted to portrait would be an acceptable option. (Sorry about the non-laptop aside.)

Glasgow subway's new smart tickets aren't, moan passengers

Re: Bizarro Price Rise

Yes, it is a price rise to everyone except commuters. From £1.10 per single to £1.40. Although £12 per week is cheap for commuters Glasgow is small and the Subway even smaller and very few Subway users need return tickets each and every trip. With the random weather the carnet was useful for when it rained and useful for taking home shopping (without having to pay to go into town).

Re: Too cheap

No, it is not cheap. Bus travel is expensive - £1.90 single or £4 for a day pass in Glasgow. More expensive than when London offfered bus-only passes (Boris has now banned bus-passes, you now have to pay for trains as well).

The Subway in Glasgow is very small, a single circuit and only serves a small part of the City. And a ticket costs £1.40 (single) - not all that cheap bearing in mind its range.

The advantage of the old 20 journal tickets is that they do not expire and they can be used by anyone. For those who do not need a daily (or weekdaily) usage prices are now going up 27% from £1.10 to £1.40. For the weekday commuters prices are going up from £1,10 to £1.20 (though that is with a seven day pass for £12)

Apple: Our data centers are green. The other 98% of what we do ...

bit excessive

It is ridiculous to suggest the use of non-renewable back-up generators is 'disingenuous'.

Apple takes aim at accessory makers, files iPad stand patent

first they come for the...

So it isn't just their phones - now Samsung fridges can be banned!

Review: Google Nexus 4

Anachronistic metric

Never mind the smartphone - where are you able to buy a beer for a single token?

Al Jazeera buys Al Gore's Current TV news network

Depends what you mean by 'sympathetic'.

UK games market clutches chest, bleeds out sales in 2012

Re: Just a thought

Tesco's customers will be spending two to five hundred pounds per month every month on other goods. Of course they can afford to cross-subsidise (just as they can offer cheaper petrol or Sky can offer 'free' broadband (if you commit to spend £65 or £75 every month)).

And the reason why an online store that also has a high street presence can't have a large price differential - uhm. surely that is self-evident?

Apple: 27-inch iMac won't ship until next year

A $100 difference on an £1100 purchase (and with duty still to be removed from that $100) is hardly extreme. And is as nothing compared to the gouge you face if you only want a better disk drive or graphics.

BBC iPlayer downloads BORKED by Adobe Air update

Re: Not again

Yes it happened before. I did not know they had even fixed the previous breakfast - I have been rejecting updates on restarts for months.

By the way, as something similar happened before then that feeling you had was not deja vu. You appear to misunderstand the whole bleeding point of deja vu. 'Deja vu' is now used 'correctly' as often as 'literally' and 'ironically'. Auntie would not be pleased. (And, yes, I do know that usage trumps pedantry. That is why 'correctly' is in quotes.)

Apple scrambled to hire iOS 6 maps engineers DAYS before launch

"fanbois and fangrrls across the world "

Boyish lesbians and punk feminists? Well, some of the women in the queue may have been of that persuasion but, at least where I am, they seemed to be outnumbered by the straight and the straights (not, of course, that this is something that can be categorised by such a superficial examination as a glance).

I don't know, I'm getting old. I can't keep up with this new-fangled argot. When did bois start having to share their name? What was wrong with calling fans 'fans' and 'fanboys'?

Dredd movie review

Re: Dredd 3D

I abhor 3D but think your example of The Hole is unfair. At least, being a children's film, it was widely screened in 2D. It was also one of the best horror films that year. It may have had a gloss of 3D turd deglossing it but is was not a turd that had been polished, iyswim.

As to Dredd, every 2D screening (only one screening per day!) was sold out. Despite this the cinema stopped showing the film after one week. 3D version still being shown. Whether it is the distributors or cinema that is responsible I don't care. It is bonkers.

Oh well. At least it was possible to see it in twod. Most 18/15 genre films are not given that small break (Underworld, Resident Evil, Piranha, Fright Night).

Only 3% of UK's TV oglers want more sex

Get tae <preserve our sensibilities>

The most bizarre example of censorship I have seen recently is this week on Breaking Bad (don't panic, not spoiling) where a verbal use of 'fuck' is cleaned out. They can show a tortoise like that, they can show that character showing the other side of his face, they can focus on a drug kingpin as a 'sympathetic' antihero but you can't show a single 'fuck off'???

Perhaps I've ahem'ed the Walmart version? Serves (intended) me right, I suppose. I wonder how much I've inadvertently missed from previous episodes. How many versions do they have?

New gov.uk site hits beta, flashes SINGLE typeface to punters

surely some mistake

"Iterate. Then iterate again."

A typical governmental waste of taxes - using a redundant tautology

Microsoft takes on tablets with keyboard-equipped Surface

Not a tablet

It is a laptop with a touchscreen.

A tablet demands portrait mode. What is the point of another 16:9 laptop?

Oh well. At least it is not that resolution and 15"! At 10.6" a 1366x768 is a retina display.

Retina Display detachment

Re: I don't get the fuss

"Lower storage: uhh... you can buy a 768GB SSD for these things... that's more than apple have ever offered on any laptop (including as a spinning platter)."

Yes. Only £900 for the 512 extra GB. Bargain.

Apple iMac refresh due Real Soon Now

Re: Will it be a chinless wonder?

But instead of shaving off the chin the screen should encroach the jaw-line. More vertical pixels - it's a computer not a television... oh, what's the point...

Apple's Retina Macs: A little too elite?

Gouging for all

To be fair, this gouging is not unique to the 'elite' and 'professional'. A home user who just wants a neat one-box entry level iMac will have to pay an extra £370 if they have the temerity to need a bog-standard 2TB hard disk.

MP blasts 'ineffective' games regulation

You couldn't make it up

NomNomNom: "Snakes and ladders: a particularly sickening game..."

Too late. Snakes and Ladders is already 'banned' in America. The scary snakes have been replaced with slides and the game is renamed Chutes and Ladders.

Sega squirts urinal game console onto shop shelves

Not just a flight of whimsy.

It is not a whim. It takes longer to toilet train a Japanese child than a Western one. All that pixellation means they can not see where their bits are exactly so it takes far longer for them to blindly develop accurate hand-to-bits co-ordination based solely on touch.

Publishers' club lauds UK e-book sales surge

Really?

A decrease in cover price. A DECREASE in cover price? Of physcial paperbacks? My ar$$.

And even if, statistically, that is true... perhaps if publishers bothered to accommodate adequate gutters so you could read without destroying the spine. Perhaps if they did not print an inflated cover price that presupposed a multi-buy discount...

I hate the destruction of the nasty commie net book cartel. Pardon me for preferring the days of only having to make a binary choice between a £1.95 mass market Grafton or a £2.95 King Penguin and today's wonderful freedom of getting an X-Factor's wannabee biography from Asda for £3 and a literary novel where the £13 softcover is more expensive than the remaindered hardback. Thank you, free market. Fuck.